- Jun 5, 2014
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https://gridironnow.com/positive-florida-cant-be-bad-again-can-it/
Discuss.But the worse moments still were reserved for Nussmeier. He is the one who couldn’t get plays called in time, forcing all the timeouts. And the insistence on his predictable rotation of running and passing plays was somewhere between arrogant, stubborn and idiotic. At one point, with less than two minutes to play in the third quarter and trailing by 26 points, Nussmeier actually called three consecutive running plays – a zone-read handoff, a reverse and a quarterback draw.
Later, after Missouri went ahead 42-9 and kicked off, the first play was an inside handoff. That’s right – down 42-9 in the fourth quarter, let’s start the drive with a simple handoff. It is what losing teams, teams that expect to be behind, do.
I’ve written this before: The people I know who are close to Nussmeier tell me he is a genuinely good guy – liked by players, other coaches, works hard, truly cares. Having said that, he might be the most overmatched offensive coordinator I’ve seen at Florida. With apologies to Charlie Weis and Brent Pease, to Lynn Amedee and Whitey Jordan (look them up), this guy gets the title. It might be the worst stretch of play-calling in my 35-plus years of covering Florida.